Planting a wooded area - creating a bit of history!

Wait until Spring when all the trees begin to bud!

We have been in our new building now for over 6.5 years, you have seen in this post how the outdoor area has developed over those years in the nursery but sadly the same couldn't be said of the 'big school'. It is a hard standing, tarmac playground with a big sloped grassy area that the children can only use in very dry weather.
Our acting Vice-principal wanted to develop this area & set up a committee of staff & parents to look at what we could achieve. It was decided that we wanted to do something immediate rather than apply for funding & have to wait for many years to change the hard standing playground. So we turned our attention to the grassy area.

We sought the advice of a fabulous education officer, Peter Brown from a local woodland area, An Creagán, that the nursery class uses in the 3rd term. He immediately saw the potential of the space & suggested a tree planting party with parents, children & staff all coming together on a Saturday morning to create a wooded area within school grounds. He was kind enough to also draw up a rough plan for us & gave us the contact details of where to go to get the trees at a reasonable price - The Conservation Volunteers nursery.
So we found ourselves in school on a Saturday morning to help make history. It was amazing to see so many families & staff turn up to help out - in fact we had so many at 10.00 that we almost had 2/3rds planted by 11.30!! 

Peter gave a digging demonstration before we started!

We had planned for the day to run from 10.00-3.00 but in fact at 1.00 we had to start holding trees back in case any families turned up later & didn't get a chance to plant any! Thanks to many people both parents & staff, we had soup & sandwiches to give everyone at intervals & tea & coffee. It was so lovely to see lots of familes en masse - even with tiny new babies come along to get involved. 

Each person who helped plant a tree got to make a label to put on a tree. Some of the children put their class on them & were saying then they will be able to keep an eye on how big it gets each year as they move up into another class!

We were fortunate to have a parent bring along a mini digger to help scoop out 3 semi-circle seated areas - the plan is to put bark chippings & logs stumps into these for areas for the children to sit in. 

We hope to make full use of this area all year round & all through the day. Every child will be asked to bring in wellies to keep in school (like we do in nursery) & eventually the school hopes to provide waterproof clothing for every class, so far the nursery & P.1 have sets. 
One little boy who is in P.4 said 'When this is finished this will be the best school in the world'! Then he went on to ask would the children be able to use it every day, and when he was told about the idea of having wellies & rain gear he said 'Oh just like nursery'.
It will be fantastic to see this area develop over the next few months as the trees begin to bud, it's hard to see where they are all planted while they are just 'sticks' but hopefully as the months go past we will see small changes.

The fruit trees & vegetables will go behind the fenced area.

The next phase is to plant out some fruit trees & a vegetable area behind the fencing. 
I hope that in a few years I can do a post to show the evolution this space too! 
I'm linking this post up to Country Kids over at Coombe Mill.